Storyteller designs cardgame based on Tamil novel

After working on the Ponniyin Selvan podcast for almost 1.5 years, storyteller Deepika Arun knew the characters from the book like the back of her hand. She decided to club her knowledge about the epic novel and her passion for board games. Recently, Deepika launched the world’s first card game based on the Tamil novel, Ponniyin Selvan. “I studied the characters in the book ­­— I understood how Amarar Kalki created each character, how artist Maniam did the illustration and so on. I thought if this was designed into a game, it would become a game changer and shared the idea with my cousin Vidhya, who is an illustrator. After a few months’ work, we created the world’s first card game based on the novel Ponniyin Selvan,” Deepika Arun tells DT Next.

The game is designed for 3-6 players. “The players have to use their intelligence and strategy to role play as the characters in this epic story and win over their fellow players to become the kingmaker of the Chola dynasty. While knowing the Ponniyin Selvan story is just an added advantage, anyone not knowing the story can also have a lot of fun playing this game. Also, this game would introduce everyone to the characters of Ponniyin Selvan before the movie release,” she smiles.